78 MEMOIR OF 



otter is not one to which hounds, of their own 

 accord, will naturally stoop ; but he might well 

 have guessed it by the result of that fruitless 

 leg-labour to which he patiently resigned him- 

 self for so long a time. 



It is a curious fact that the veriest cur, the 

 first time he crosses the line of a deer, will drop 

 his nose and carry the scent as instinctively as 

 a blind puppy will hunt for the teat of its dam. 

 It requires, too, as every one knows, but little 

 persuasion to induce hounds to enter at fox and 

 hare ; simply because those animals are their 

 natural prey. But not so with the otter, the 

 scent of which, until he is trained to it, appears 

 to have little or no attraction for the nose 

 of a young hound. Indeed, let a whole pack, 

 however well trained, find an old otter in 

 moderately strong water, and if left entirely to 

 themselves, and man's hand and eye give them 

 no aid, the chances of a kill, except by acci- 

 dent, will in every case be dead against the 

 hounds. 



It may fairly be inferred, therefore, from the 

 unreadiness of hounds in first taking to the 

 scent, as well as from the all but insuperable 

 difficulty of killing the animal without supple- 

 mentary aid, that Nature never intended the 

 otter to be an object of prey for hounds ; and 

 that, in fact, the sport is to them an artificial 

 one from beginning to end. 



